Episode 621: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part I - All The World's a Stage

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That's when the cannibalism started. What was that? Man, I was... God. I was thinking about this, about how my dad, one of these big memories came up, one of my favorite things. Your deceased father. My dad, he's dead. Was it dysentery? Actually, cholera? Dropsy? He drowned. He drowned while they were fording a river. You know my father is loving to ford rivers. But he used to say a poem.

And I think it was from an old comedy special, and I've been thinking about it ever since we started on this series. And I think I've done it before here, but maybe not. Lincoln, Lincoln, I've been thinking. What the hell have you been drinking? Is it water? Is it wine?

Oh my God, it's turpentine. But that's the only thing I have. My dad used to say that one too. I think that's a Northeast thing. What is that from? It's just like old man limericks. There was less entertainment back then. It's completely nonsensical. It really, I don't know what it is.

My father was obsessed with dirty limericks. Oh, yeah. We had a song that we always sing. As I sit in my cell with my fingers dipped in shit and the shadow of my ding dong on the wall. As the prisoners pass their shoving peanuts.

in my ass, and the guards are playing ping pong with my balls. Yeehaw! Welcome to Last Podcast on the Left, ladies and gentlemen. It's a serious history show. Hey, this is very serious. We're going to be talking about a lot of serious... stuff today my name is Marcus Parks I'm here with the grieving Henry Zebrowski I am revised and reviled and reconstituted by the power of the theater. The show must go on. Yes.

And the man with a mind for a thousand dirty songs, it's Ed Larson. Ah, yes. Oh, you... The importance of history can't be understated when it comes to the show. All of this is history.

today we are going to be beginning a three-part series. I'm so fucking excited for this on the assassination of president. Abraham Lincoln. Who did it? We're going to kill him again and again and again. This better not be like the Black Dahlia. I want to know what happened. Actually, Eddie, unfortunately, just like the Black...

It does end in another Jewish cabal. And I hate that about history, but it always does, doesn't it, boys? No, I'm very happy about this one. There is zero ambiguity in this story. story like we know everything that happened like this is it's so well documented this is like it's there's so much context oh there's so much context so much context now the other problem here is that there's also one of those people there's one of these stories

And if you don't believe what happened here, you're so far gone. Like, in the world of Lincoln conspiracy theorists that I have now ensconced myself in, these guys are, like... Lost. They're lost. What'd they think, you didn't have a hat? These guys still have, like, they're getting wooden teeth made. Well, when it comes to the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln. Yeah!

I think most of us know the broad strokes. No, we're not. Stop being so excited about Lincoln getting killed. Let's get him again! It was just so easy to kill a president then. Back then it was, yeah. Now you've got to do it at Disneyland and there's a robot. It's so hard. But God, is it satisfying tearing apart coolants like that. Nothing makes me happier than ripping the breastplate off of Gerald Ford. playing with his fucking automatic guts.

The broad strokes that on April 14th, 1865, just as the American Civil War was wrapping up, a well-known actor by the name of John Wilkes Booth walked into Ford's theater during a performance of a play and fired a fatal shot. into Abraham Lincoln's head. And yes, John Wilkes Booth is, of course, the main character in this story. Ken, for these next two paragraphs, can you do this in a more Ken Burns style?

We're not really right in a Ken Burns style. But what's lesser known about the conspiracy to kill the president was that Lincoln was not the only target that night. While Booth was killing Lincoln, a co-conspirator was also making an attempt on the life of Lincoln's Secretary of State, William Seward, and that attempt came incredibly close to success.

I can't do Peter Coyote. Peter Coyote is an incredibly difficult voice to do. I totally understand. But you know what that did kind of sound I thought was interesting? Kind of sounded like, what's his name from Rod Sterling? Oh, yeah. Try to do Peter Roadrunner.

I could do Rod Serling. Additionally, later investigations revealed that the conspiracy had plans to go wide with a full-on murder spree as it was discovered that Booth and his co-conspirators had included the vice president... the Secretary of War, and General Ulysses S. Grant. as probable targets. Where's the guy that, wasn't Lincoln inside a guy named Kennedy? Didn't he ride a man named Kennedy that day to the theater? Now the scope of this

conspiracy might lead you to assume that this whole operation was hatched by the confederacy as a last-ditch effort to take out the leadership of the union either for the purposes of revenge or as a desperate attempt at a comeback and indeed people were at the time that the main assassin was John Wilkes Booth, because Booth was a fairly well-known actor from a famous acting family. Thank you for even saying it! Yes!

I am famous by birth. My cum was famous before me. Even though I sort of hate this term, it could be said that John Wilkes Booth was, in modern parlance, a Nepo baby. Because Booth's father, Junius Booth, was one of the most celebrated and well-respected actors of his time.

Additionally, John Wilkes Booth's older brothers were also well-regarded actors. They'd gained a certain amount of fame before John Wilkes had even decided on acting as a career. Consequently, the name recognition did help Booth reach fame.

faster because when john wilkes booth killed lincoln when booth was just 26 years old he was indeed one of the most well-known actors in the country it's kind of wild in my opinion the closest modern comparison to the booths would be the sheen family martin sheen Charlie Sheen.

and Emilio Estevez. Rock and roll. Well, in terms of shock, John Wilkes Booth killing Abraham Lincoln at that point in his career would have been similar to Charlie Sheen shooting George H.W. Bush in the head while Hot Shots was... still in the theaters. Wow, that would have been an amazing day in the newsroom. It's more men at work. No, I checked it out. It was when Charlie Seen was 26 years old.

Hot Shots was in the theater. It was like two years after Minute Work. And then he killed the president. That's amazing. That's so talented. What a huge year.

But the point here with Booth's acting credentials is that most people were not at all inclined to believe that a mere actor could have pulled off a double assassination attempt on his own. Common sense, the public thought, dictated that the Confederacy must have formulated the plan before hiring Booth to kill the president.

Others believe that the conspiracy went even deeper, speculating that Lincoln's assassination was a cabinet coup, or a plot from the Jesuits, or the Knights Templar, or the ever-present Jewish banking cabal. Any one of them, people thought, could have killed Lincoln for their own nefarious purposes. Because it does seem like people were willing to believe anything to prevent themselves from accepting the fact that an actor had simply walked up to the president at the end of the war.

and blew his brains out with a fair amount of ease. The main skill set that one must have is to be light of foot, fleet of mind, and to have written a script before where the ending is and then John Wilkes Booth shoots. The president. And that's how I knew I would be successful that day because it was written down in a play. Now this yearning for a larger conspiracy is understandable, extraordinarily human.

and still very present in today's America. As we've said many times, it's highly unsettling to accept that a few guys plotting in the shadows can shake the country's foundations to its very core. And at the point in its history where Lincoln was killed, America was already in its shakiest. position ever the civil war was by far the most harrowing ordeal our country has been through thus far what about linsanity

Linsanity was pretty rough. In New York, it was pretty rough, actually. And what about when KFC made the chicken, the bread? Oh, the double down? The double down. That was bad. That really was bad. That shook a lot of people, and I feel like that. It actually set us quite a bit. I kind of blame that for Anthony Weiner's downfall in some way. I don't know how yet, but you will read my book once it's done. Interestingly, I actually remember the double down extraordinarily.

well. Of course. We were all obsessed. I lived across the street from the KFC. It was in Bushwick. Yeah, it felt like my Manhattan Project. It felt like the biggest thing that happened to us. It shook everything. We're like, chicken can't be bread. Bread's bread. It was the first time in my whole

I was like, fuck bread. Yeah, bread's stupid. Back to the Civil War. Oh, thank you. For the most part, people were relieved that it was over, as even the South was beginning to accept the inevitability of its defeat.

But the assassination of Abraham Lincoln changed everything. The repercussions of Lincoln's murder are still felt in America today. Repercussions we'll surely discuss. But in the end, it really was just a small group of shitheads led by the modern equivalent of an action star that made all of it happen. You know what it all ties it back to now, too? Is how just being famous.

lends credence to you John Wilkes Booth was the ultimate faker bitch in history he was one of these guys that he was a full stolen valor like kind of just very similar to another actor i keep he brings up to me in my mind is a mark walberg he's very similar to a mark walberg type where he has played

so many tough guys where John Wilkes Booth was doing all these action-based plays. Yeah, he was a stuntman. He was just an action guy. And he began to believe he could just then be one in real life. But he's more like Donnie Wahlberg.

Johnny Wahlberg had that great turn of the sixth sense. I'm not saying. He tickled the hell out of me. Yes, he did. Yeah. You are ticklish. Yeah, he was all over my body. This is real. I shouldn't even say that. Johnny Wahlberg tickled you? I told you. this whole story. What?

Quickly, please. Between takes, when I was working with him, he'd tickle me and he kept calling me Big Fat Boy. And then he jumped on my back and he called me Fat Boy and he kept jumping and tickling me. He's laughing at Fat Boy, laughing at Fat Boy.

And then there was mannequins on set. What project was this on? It said Blue Bloods. And then there were mannequins on set. Is Blue Bloods the same show that the pie shop that me and Jackie worked for used to make all the pies for? Yeah, yeah, yeah, with Tom Selleck.

He'd go up to the lady mannequins and they were nude in there because I was playing a serial killer groupie. And that's like a thing that I guess they thought I would have in the background, like Herbert Baumeister. And he would go up to the mannequins and he'd kick them in the crotch area and go, I kick you in. the pussy, I kick you in the pussy.

Which is weird, but not as weird as crawling on your pack tickling you and saying... I actually thought that tickling made more sense than the kicking the mannequins in the pussy. I still owe him 50 bucks for that. Hey, hey, that actually worked.

Now, one of the most fascinating aspects of an assassination is that killing Abraham Lincoln was not the original plan. Initially, Booth's idea conceived eight months earlier was to kidnap Lincoln for use as a bargaining chip to gain the release of Confederate prisoners of war. I have another idea, John.

What if we take, or listen, I heard about this. I heard there's several ways to do this, right? And we can create a facsimile of a bodily function by taking a bag filled with air. Listen, and we will destroy any sort of semblance of authority. Are you talking? Are you talking about something that might make a sound like a whoopee? I would say like a whoopee, like a flatulence. And a flatulence bag. You put it underneath him, spindly as he is, he will sit on it.

And he will bounce and fart. And that in and itself will destroy his credibility. He would have been the most annoying kidnap victim. Because he just would have kept telling stories the whole time. There's another story about the time me and my best friend spent many months sleeping together in one bed in a cabin. Oh, we... Tessled and wrestled. We went to Kentucky, but I turned into Ken fucky. Oh, yes. I was fucking my buddy Ken.

Well, Booth believed that if the South's manpower was restored, then victory would be inevitable. But when it became obvious that the war was unwinnable because Booth dragged his fucking feet because he was a coward. Booth and his co-conspirators instead focused solely on taking revenge against the man that they believed was responsible for the death of America as they believed it should exist. Their America was, of course, one where the institution of slavery was

Because as we'll see, there is no doubt that the defense of slavery was, more than anything, Booth's main motivation. See, Booth was radicalized by his belief in the institution of slavery and his hatred of the abolitionist movement. And these twin passions served as continued inspiration for both John Wilkes Booth's love of the Confederacy and his burning hatred for Abraham Lincoln.

Eddie, you touched upon this when we did that little guest spot on Sounds Like a Cult where John Wilkes Booth needed slavery to feel important himself. He was so mediocre. He was the least talented of the family. He was the one that kind of got into the family business late. And I think for a long time, slavery was what allowed him to feel better than a common slave. Like having a slave and that no matter what you're.

the top of a food chain societally anywhere you're always you're born on third base but he doesn't even need to actually own any any slaves like that was the thing about john welkes booth he never owned anything but like he never actually like owned another person like he was just he just liked it he's like the idea of it and that's the thing is that there were a ton of people in the south who just liked it there's a lot of people who still just like it yeah

Yeah, unfortunately. Yes, very much so. No, they do enjoy having the hierarchy like that. is very comforting to them. And that was one of John Wilkes Booth's defining characteristics is like just the comfort of having that hierarchy in place. Where's his statue? Actually, Andy, I have an unofficial statue of his in my backyard. I've been slowly whittling it from the whitest sapling I could find.

But before we get into the history of John Wilkes Booth and the events that led him to become America's first presidential assassin, let's acknowledge the stack of sources that we use for this series. It's going to be thick. Yeah.

We've got Blood on the Moon by Edward Steers Jr. The Madman and the Assassin by Scott Martell. That one is incredible, and I can't wait to talk about the guy who killed John Wilkes Booth because he is a true American character. Yeah. We also have My Thoughts Be... bloody by nora titone uh and uh all of these books great for filling the gaps and booth story but our main source the one we'd recommend above all is american brutus by michael kaufman just fucking fascinating stuff

Great context. Also, blood on the moon is why we're so hesitant to have female astronauts. Let's continue. Because once they get there, obviously, because moon controls their blood, controls all the woman's blood. If they get too close to the moon, they just start shooting.

blood and it just fills up their boots yes back to history and so let's get into the story of abraham lincoln's assassin It's more of a One more blue and one more gray As they marched along the way A fife and drum began to play On a beautiful morning Civil War songs. Two brothers. I've been listening. It's been fun. Hell yeah. You've got to come over sometime. I have this great record that's all like songs of the Civil War.

Get a book. It's a folk voice recording. You'll love it. Yeah, I have this great record I also just bought called The Sounds of Gettysburg. And it's just people going, ow, ow, ow. Ow, ow. I'm sick. I don't feel good.

Let's start with the fascinating history of the Booth family itself. Now, John Wilkes Booth's parents were by no means what we'd call progressive or enlightened, but it must be said that Booth did not inherit his hateful philosophy from his family. Rather, Booth's parents were, at their core, romantic. star-crossed lovers who had escaped to America from their home country of England, where scandal had marked the beginning of their relationship. This is truly a celebrity family story.

But John Wilkes Booth's parents were not aristocrats, nor were they part of the nobility. Instead, John Wilkes Booth's father, Junius Brutus Booth, was incredibly famous on both sides of the Atlantic for being an actor. Considered the Daniel Day-Lewis of his time, Junius had been acting professionally since the age of 17. Junius was also quite the Lothario, and the same year he performed for the first time on stage was the same year he also...

He's the kind of guy, too, who said he's an old-timey fashion version of what they viewed as, like, exciting and handsome. Because when you look at him... He's a toad. He's a toad, but they're like, his broad chest allowed his lungs to fill with air that allowed his emerald-like voice to carry for miles on end.

Tanglehead was more beautiful with each pointed corner. And the envy of every gentleman as the women fainted at the smell of his jacket. And knowing that his corpulent body held within the genius that they saw. after. They kept calling him compact and muscular. He's compact. It looks like me. It's like me trying to get my Alex Jones buddy. I just realized American Brutus makes sense on multiple levels because his dad's middle name is Brutus and obviously Brutus.

Turned his back on Caesar. Don't spoil the end of the fucking show, Caesar. Link. The audience doesn't know what happens. A two, Henry. Yeah, I'll eat two.

Now, Junius somewhat settled down with a wife and child after siring... a second child out of wedlock. But not too long after his first legitimate child was born, Junius met a poor 18-year-old English girl named Marianne while she was selling flowers outside of a theater where Junius was performing. Junius won her love by reading her the poetry of Lord Byron. Very...

Sexy for the time. I wouldn't say pornographic, but highly erotic. He sat upon a tuffet that made the squishing sound. We all knew that her breasts and butt were round. Everybody was excited. Everybody came around when old Betsy, with her big sagging bumps and forth, she rattled her way into town. Were you an English major in college too? Yes. That's also how I talk to illiterate flower girls outside.

And she's sitting there all covered in grime and shit. And she's like, I bet you would make a fine capsule for my seat. You dirty little girl. What a fine capsule you'll be. You like that poem, you like this other poem. Boom, boom, boom are the sounds in my room when I'm pushing you with my big man broom. That was for his father's last words. I'm just glad I got to use him here.

Before long, Junius Booth abandoned his first family to run off to Maryland to start a new life with flower girl Mary Ann in America in 1821. Mary Ann Booth, well, eventually Mary Ann Booth, she would give birth to 10 children in America, including John Wilkes, before she and Junius were allowed to get married.

because Junius had run off without getting a divorce. Actually, I don't even know if divorce was allowed at that time. Church of England stuff, I don't think the Church of England allows divorce. I don't know.

Either way. No, it has to, because that's the one that he created in order to allow divorce to happen. That's true. Yes. Yeah, but they still don't like it. Yeah, no, they don't. No one likes it. Yeah. But anyway, Junius did not get divorced. And so most of the Booth children, all the Booth children, actually, were technically. born out of wedlock. Best! And Marianne's reputation in Maryland was destroyed when Junius' first wife appeared in Baltimore years later where she told everyone

The sordid tale. Yeah, like she's the first loose woman in Baltimore. Now, all this may just sound like gossip.

And it is. But these are actually formative events when it came to forming the personality of John Wilkes Booth. See, the providence of John Wilkes' birth and the scandal concerning his father's first marriage, these things instilled a sort of inferiority complex in our assassin, born from the idea that he may or may not be a real Booth. In fact, John Wilkes Booth was so insecure about all this that as a teenager, he had the letters JWB.

tattooed on his hand, and it's speculated that Booth did so to give himself a constant reminder that he was not just the bastard son of Junius Booth.

But perhaps even more than the name, I would say that what John Wilkes Booth learned and inherited from his father more than anything was the concept... that all the world is a stage, and that life itself is nothing more than a very long performance. All I need is a pair of tap shoes, a wonderful sonnet by Shakespeare, and two human...

slaves. Those are all I need to be one of the best actors in America. Simple requests. Yes, may I please see the blood of a black person today. Otherwise, I will not be able to sing. You would have done great on Twitter. Oh, yes, I would have. Oh, please, it's his ex. You make countless decisions every day.

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Now, Junius Booth's scandal with his first wife did not reach American shores for many years. So Junius was free to build a life as a pure entertainment phenomenon. Junius simply loved acting and would accept... any engagement, no matter how small or remote the venue was. By the end of his career, Junius had given over 2,800 performances in 68 cities. In the process, he'd gained the praise of the poet Walt Whitman.

Walt Whitman considered Junius Booth the greatest actor he'd ever seen. The papers all agreed. They stated over and over again that the compact and muscular Junius Booth was the most magnificent actor in the world. Jimmy! Not to be that is the question. You look nice. Yep, slings and arrows and all that. I wish I could go to sleep and miss my daddy. Someone give me a fish. Ah, the theater. I'm Hamlet. I mean, joke.

But, you know, that's what he would do. He was said to be an electrifying performer, but he would also sometimes snap at a character in the middle of a performance and do crowd work. That's kind of cool. It has never changed. We're back in the crowd work now. The audience, they go to see all the Shakespeare stuff and legitimately they would say that he would show up with pages in hand and just go literally a couple...

lines and be like, where are you from? What are you doing? Tell me, you're a fucking black guy? Same thing. Same thing as the other guy. I mean, 2,800 performances. How do you remember all those lines? You don't. Yeah, you break and talk to the audience for a little bit.

But like many great artists, Junius Booth was no stranger to eccentric behavior. Most notably, Junius was a staunch vegetarian in a time when such a choice was considered freakish and deranged. And he was so passionate... God. What an asshole. That was like when you had dinner with Penn Jillette. Yes, he did that to me. I ordered steak frites, and he chastised me for it. Really? Yeah, it was midnight. Maybe it was an annoying order for the kitchen, but he was more upset about the cow. Yeah.

Yell at the kitchen, dude. I didn't fucking kill the cow, dude. Live your life. He certainly, he was a magician, but he certainly made all the fun disappear. Ooh, they're funny. He also told me that Robin Williams didn't commit suicide, that it was auto-erotic asphyxiation. I'm like, I just met you. Let's start with what happened to Building 7 first.

When I met him in college, he was absolutely wonderful. He came by. We were having a staff meeting for the college radio station, and he came by, and he said the seven words that you can't. He said the shit, piss, fuck, cunt. And he did it to Cheers. Oh, yeah, man. I mean, he used to be funner. That's when he was using drugs. Yeah. Well, this is 2002. Yeah, it was probably more fun then. Teller was great. He talked to me. I heard his voice. It was awesome. Yeah, it was cool.

Now, when an actor is quote-unquote eccentric, that usually means they're also highly unreliable, and Junius was no exception. In addition to being an alcoholic, Junius would sometimes blow off performances completely, but not just so he could dive into a bottle. Instead, Junius would be found wandering the woods in full costume.

hours after he was supposed to be on stage with no explanation as to why he didn't make curtains. If they want the show, they'll come to me. They'll come to this log. That's where the show is. And I woke up today knowing I was going to be Theodore. It was almost as if he'd lost himself in the character so completely that he forgot that acting was his actual job.

These eccentricities, however, were often written off as signs of Booth's so-called genius. Junius Booth had such a reputation that when he did blow off a show without notice, members of the audience would justify his absence. as a commentary on the play, or as a piece of performance art. They'd sit in the audience and cry out, Booth is a genius!

Like, just to justify not getting pissed off that he just didn't feel like coming. That's the dream, man. Yeah, it is. I mean, you got to earn that. You know he fucking counted those towards the 6,800, too. Oh, yeah. Oh, no. Oh, yeah, dude. He's like, my president.

played last night. It must be said, however, the Junius Booth lived a life of tragedy when it came to his children, and not just because one of his kids ended up killing the president. Three of his kids died of cholera. But Junius, in true actor form, took the opportunity to make the deaths all about himself. As so-called... penance for letting his children die, Junius would walk around with hard peas in his shoes. Oh, these peas. So uncomfortable. How did he get his pee hard? Oh, I froze it.

On another occasion, he punished himself by affixing lead soles to his shoes before walking from Baltimore to Washington. It's all foot... based punishment. That is what I can reach. It's also what I like to call the Frankenstein March of Satin. Now everyone turn away so I can have a burger. Don't watch me while I'm enjoying myself on this trampoline. Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow! My boy! My boy!

The tragedy that pushed Junius over the edge, however, was when a fourth child died bizarrely and horribly from a bee attack when the Booth family was on a ship crossing the Atlantic to London. My son died while my wife was still pregnant with him and the bees crawled up her vagina. They must have thought it was a hive because of how sweet her ovaries were.

How delicious and honey-baked her eggs must be. She stuck flowers in her pussy. That was her biggest mistake. I told her it was old-fashioned. Honestly, I know it was the first version of douchey. Goddamn Seabees. What made the tragedy even worse for Junius was that when he arrived in London, he spent most of his time in the city dodging the wife and son that he'd abandoned years earlier.

As a result of the pain and anxiety that came from all this drama, Junius attempted suicide in 1838 by jumping off the side of a steamer ship, but was... I shall jump from the highest leader deck. Goodbye, everyone. See you in hell. But he was saved by a crew of quick-thinking sailors. I knew you'd save me. Interestingly, Junius made this attempt while his wife was pregnant with Lincoln's assassin. And just two months after Junius tried drowning himself, John Wilkes Booth was born.

Now, contrary to what you might think, John Wilkes Booth was not a Southerner, not by birth, nor heritage, nor environment. Instead, Booth and his siblings were born and raised on the Booth family farm in Bel Air, Maryland, hidden away from society lest Booth's career be ruined by the second family scandal. Interestingly, Booth's upbringing in Maryland, specifically in the years leading up to the Civil War, greatly informed his future worldview.

See, it's not like there was some magical latitudinal barrier running across America in which everyone in a future Union state were abolitionists while every future Confederate was in love with slavery. Rather, border states like Maryland were more or less evenly split between Union supporters and Confederate sympathizers. And even though Maryland was not in the Confederacy, slavery was indeed legal in the state until after the Civil War.

began until the Emancipation Proclamation. I recently learned that Kentucky never really joined the Confederacy, even though they're below the Mason-Dixon line. Yeah. It's crazy. It's all over the place. It really comes down to it. John Wilkes Booth is the ultimate stolen valor. like bitch like he really identifies the southern please yes that's the thing is that he's doing that thing he's like acting like he's like even more so in an extremely divided state

It even shows how much more of an antisocial personality he had. Well, you identify as a New Yorker. Not really. Well, I don't really identify as either. Hmm. Interesting. I identify as... a holy warrior, a scholar, and a police officer, if you ask me. Well, I mean, with John Wilkes Booth, I would say I wouldn't even go as far as to say that he had an antisocial personality. I would say he had a contrarian personality. Oh, yeah. That's, I think, more what he was about.

Now, many people in Maryland had to choose when it came to supporting or decrying slavery. And John Wilkes Booth certainly landed on the pro-slavery side when it came time for him to make his own decision on the matter. There were, of course, various reasons for Booth's...

choice, but it seems like his opinion on slavery and abolition were most greatly informed by an incident known as the Christiana Riot that occurred when Booth was around 13 years old. Now, the Christiana riot was a pivotal event in the lead up to the Civil War, an incredible story. But the reason why the incident affected Booth so heavily is because it directly involved a man named Edward Gorsuch, who was father.

to one of Booth's closest so-called bosom friends from childhood. Titty friends, please. Thank you. Breast friends. Now, Edward Gorsuch, is that any relation to the famous politician? No. No, no, it's not. All right, well, that's it. You just wanted to know that you remembered that name. Yes. What does that politician do? I think he's... Neil Gorsuch. Yeah, Nell Gorsuch. I think that he's the guy that goes, hey, Tay, in a wind. Hey, Tay. Sue. Burrito. Supreme leader of the...

Are you on Arby's? He's on Carnival Cruise? Lines? He's on Carnival Cruise? Doesn't matter. Doesn't matter. It's not him. Is he important? Not anymore. Well, as far as the Christiana Wright story goes, Edward Gorsuch was a slave owner who ran a wheat and corn plantation north of Baltimore. But in 1849... four of his enslaved men escaped across the Maryland border into the free state of Pennsylvania.

Two years passed with no word. But then, out of nowhere, Edward Gorsuch received a letter from a freelance slave catcher informing... It's the worst fucking job, and it is the most despicable job in the history of humanity. It's a side gig. I do it for the love. They really did. These are the guys who are like, you know what? There's really nobody going out there and just finding slaves. I just got to go find them. I got to find them and rouse them up. Yeah, that's what these guys would do.

they would go around, they would try to find, and then they would find the former owners of these people and send them letters and be like, hey, I know where your guys are. Give me some money. I'll tell you where they are. But if they're in the North, aren't they away? No. No. Because he can bring them back. No. Because technically it's because they were, yeah. The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, my friend. Oh, man. Yeah, which we'll get into here in a second.

But Edward Gorsuch, out of nowhere, received a letter from a freelance slave catcher saying that he knew where Gorsuch's four enslaved men had escaped to. And for a fee, the hunter offered to aid Gorsuch in their capture and return. So Gorsuch paid for the... and thereafter set off with a team of men to attempt to bring the four guys back to his farm.

As it turned out, these guys had fled to the town of Christiana, which had become both a refuge for fugitive slaves and a settlement for free black people. It was all led by a man named William Parker. William Parker was himself in a... That's awesome.

That's awesome. And not only that, they even formed fucking missions to go like... rescue enslaved people and like fuck yeah like we're gonna fucking go in rescue these guys bring them back they're gonna live with us that's awesome yeah building a fucking community yeah dude this is a good movie yeah this is one of the one of these things that'd be a fucking awesome movie to be a part of this

This whole episode is going to be filled with things that could be their own episodes. Seriously. I mean, these were not people who fucked around. And by the time Edward Gorsuch crossed the border into Pennsylvania, the people of Christiana had received word that his raiding party was on their way. They had people all over that were just listening for slave catchers.

slave hunter whatever was going to come and As such, when Gorsuch and his small party arrived at William Parker's home just before dawn, between 75 and 150 free black people from Christiana, as well as some white allies, were ready. armed and waiting we're here too yeah and we're having a good time aren't we yeah listen to me buster hey there you mind your p's and q's all right because my fellow friend and I we're celebrating community one day I will talk them into camping

Maybe. And yes, they're friends and I'm their friend and he's my friend and they're all my black friends. But they're friends. We're friends. We're all friends. Just so you know we're friends. Now, within minutes of Gorsuch's arrival, a member of the makeshift defense force struck him with the club and brought him to his knees. This prompted a response from one of Gorsuch's sons, the unfortunately named... Dickinson Gorsuch. Yeah, it's better than his daughter, Cock and daughter Gorsuch.

Dick and son. Dick and son gore suck. Yeah. Dick and son gore suck. Yeah, that's fun. Yeah, it is, yeah. He ruined his life. Try saying it. Dick and son gore suck. It's great, right? Yeah, it's a great hymn of a guy who gets fucking murdered. Well, Dickinson raised his revolver to shoot his father's assailant, but another defender struck Dickinson's arm, which caused Dickinson to drop the gun. Oh, that's not fair! And from what it seems like...

the crowd of defenders decided that the time for talking was over. Dickinson Gorsuch was shot in the stomach with a shotgun blast, but he ended up surviving. more like bullet and stomach gorsuch edward gorsuch however was not so lucky By the time the melee died down, Edward Gorsuch was found kneeling in a pool of his own blood with a rusty corn cutter blade sticking out of the side of his neck, and he soon bled to death as a consequence.

of his perverse quest to deny freedom to his fellow man. Yeah, fucking get him. Yeah, it was fun. Yeah, now let's get the other one. The new one. Is Gorsuch bad? Yeah. Let's get him. Can I not say that? No. Not really. Are people upset? No, not really. I'm not saying what we're going to do when we get him. We know what get him means. You want to go?

Kick him in the pussy. Yeah, I want to play with his belly. Let's just get him and then have the juice up with him. Yeah, let's just go to the house of a Supreme Court justice, climb on his back and tickle him. Just get him. Just get him. Let's make him have dinner with Penn Jillette. Oh, yeah. See if he can handle that.

Now, the press jumped on the Christiana riot almost immediately. Naturally, southerners saw Edward Gorsuch as a hero who had died in the defense of slavery, and they therefore demanded federal action. Now, technically, Gorsuch did have... the right to pursue the escaped slaves due to the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. It had just been passed the year before. So the federal government ended up arresting several black people involved in the killing of Edward Gorsuch in addition to three white people.

who'd been present. I was there too. I just want to be arrested as well so that everybody could see how much I support my community members. And I will be arrested post haste and then released. Hopefully immediately. The trial was followed nationwide and became a sort of test of North versus South, slavery versus freedom. In the end, the people of Pennsylvania chose freedom because it took the jury just...

15 minutes to return a verdict of not guilty. Philadelphia freedom. Less time than Lori Vallow. Wow. Yep. Now, to the people of the South, this was a gross miscarriage of justice. In today's world, you might compare this to, say, like the Derek Chauvin case, where many on the right believe that the murder of George Floyd was justified and Chauvin's conviction was therefore a travesty. in the North, however, believe that Gorsuch died for an evil cause and got what was coming to him.

That's all to say that the Christiana riot, which occurred about a decade before the Civil War began, it quickly became a microcosm of the rapidly growing divide in America over slavery. But perhaps more consequentially, the Christiana Deanna Riot was also fundamental in shaping the worldview of John Wilkes Booth. As I said earlier, John Wilkes Booth knew Edward Gorsuch.

Gorsuch was the father of Booth's so-called bosom friend. And Booth would use Gorsuch's death as an example of what happened when people fought back against slavery. And he should have learned from that. Yeah. Well... Booth saw Gorsuch as the clear victim here and in later writings Booth would state that abolition was nothing more than quote the unwarranted constant agitation of the slavery question.

And there was, of course, no man in this world who would come to represent abolition more clearly than Abraham Lincoln. I knew that I was being replaced by the black. man when they dared dared to hire a black man to play the titular role of Othello. As everybody knows, the whitest role of Shakespeare. We actually don't have any historical...

accuracy for what a moon actually is. He actually did play Othello twice. Really? Yes. Oh my god. Oh Jesus Christ. You think that'd give him some like understanding? Nope.

When did the North, we might not know the answer to this, but when did the North decide slavery was bad? Because obviously they had it in the beginning of the country. Well, it was a slow roll, you know, as far as like when, and it was like state by state. Like it wasn't, it wasn't, there was definitely no.

OK, we all decide at once that it's bad or we all decide at once that it's good. It's just it was just sort of a slow roll of like, you know, first England went and then the state sort of like took England's cue. Like, OK, maybe we shouldn't be doing this anymore. They're the bigger pricks. Yeah.

slavery for longer but they kind of came to societal understanding in in england about it being distasteful yeah yeah so eventually that's like that's the sentiment that came down for at the time too it's like they viewed

Europe as the style center. Europe was the places where all of the sort of like cultural things that were being adopted to America. So actually, I feel like the anti-slavery view was kind of like a hip new... thought process like it was like this idea of like i'm with it i'm with the new stuff because the europeans were already working in that direction well it wasn't like a hip thing i mean it's like saying today that people believe in stuff just because it's woke like it's it is it is

People just came around to it like, oh, maybe this is a fucking horrible thing. I know John Adams was vocal about it. Yeah. I just mean hip in terms of like... You know, when movement takes place, it's like now it's getting very it is both probably on the you know, it's probably however you view it, like leftist politics are now viewed as more like.

Cool. Right. Right. Like, it's that style. Or if you're the MAGA shitheads who think it's cool. I think, let's say fashionable. Yes. I think it's probably a better way of putting it. Yes, abolition did become, as, you know, the years went on. as the 19th century. Abolition did become much more fashionable up north. And it was also very fashionable up north to call the southerners a bunch of fucking hicks. Yep. Yeah. And anything that was southern was...

Now, as far as the attitude that Booth's parents had towards slavery, it was just as bizarre and nonsensical as you might expect. Junius and his wife Marianne maintained that they were abolitionists by principle because they did not enslave...

anyone directly but they did rent slave labor from their neighbors it's not sugar Can I borrow a cup of black men? I'm looking for a cup of black men. I got a fence I got to destroy. They had a standing staff of six people. But anytime anyone pointed out to Maryam Booth, that there wasn't really any difference between owning a slave and renting one, she would...

just fucking stonewall them and say like, no, it's actually very, very different. And they would ask why. And they'd say, it's very, very different. But you would never say why it was very, very different. It's because renting, you gotta pay all the taxes and you gotta do all the upkeep. See, that's the thing, is that when you own, you've got to do all the repairs yourself.

It's not justification. It's just a horrible fucking opinion. That's why she's saying it's different. No, that's not why she's saying it's different. Because she was guilty. Highly guilty of directly participating in the very institution that she said that she was against. At least she felt guilty. I don't think she did. So John Wilkes Booth did have slaves, kind of. Well, he was around. Around, yeah, yeah. He grew up with slaves on his property.

around the institution but his parents saying like talking out of both sides of their mouth saying like yeah we don't believe in slavery but yes there are slaves working for us right now it's like liberals that drive a cybertruck Now Junius Booth, he knew that acting was a difficult life.

So he intentionally tried leading his kids away from the theater into any other profession. And of course, he would only do this three months out of the year because the other nine months, Junius Booth was on the road. being an actor listen I know that um I mean this is very difficult it's so hard to travel that the you know in the highest level the fanciest coaches and stay at the best hotels

Fuck indiscriminately and mostly just kind of jabber for 45 minutes of time for, at this point, hundreds of thousands of dollars, which is, you know, in the future, hundreds of dollars, which is, you know, in the future probably worth millions of dollars. But I honestly think that you... son, I think that you should make big pumpkins or something. There's nothing that you just... I should be a pumpkin. Yeah, you should do something that's...

harder and worse. And this, even though you'll get a jumping off point into this business very easily due to how good I am at it. You know, so. Despite Junius' best efforts, three of his sons would pursue careers as thespians. What did I tell already? And by the time John Wilkes was 14, his two older brothers were already on the road making names for themselves. as the sons of the great Junius Booth.

But before John Wilkes was to become an actor himself, he would be thrust into a leadership role in his family after Junius died a very 1852 death by succumbing to dysentery aboard a... Steamboat on the Mississippi River Oh, just shit on over the side. No one will see more. Notice more mud. Hey, don't look at me. Certainly don't look at me, famous actor, Julius Booth, who is raining defecation upon the starfish. Like Dave Matthews band. Yes.

Now, even though John Wilkes Booth was only 14 years old when his father died, he became the de facto man of the house because, as I said, his two older brothers had already left to pursue fame and fortune. Quite stupidly, Booth's mother, Marianne, let the teenage John... John Wilkes managed their farm for two years, which would be a disastrous decision for both the Booths financially and when it came to further shaping John Wilkes' worldview.

I just never understand why we bother with corn. Can't the corn just grow naturally in its own state? Oh, look how hairy it gets. Look how vibrous all of the plantage that comes out of it. Ah, mother, I do not need. to fret about it with the corn, I simply must enjoy the corn while we have it.

Well, John Wilkes hired enslaved people, free black people, and Irish immigrants to work his family's farm all at the same time, which wasn't all that strange in this era. But... Since John Wilkes was just a kid, he was not prepared to handle the conflicts that erupted. And he, in fact, usually just made them worse with his natural haughtiness.

See, John Wilkes was a stickler for hierarchy and tradition, and he believed wholeheartedly from a young age that there was a natural pecking order when it came to races. classes, and nationalities. And it's an absolute coincidence that I'm at the very tip and height of that hierarchy. It is not something that I... It is just coincidence. It is just luck.

and certainly, yes, I benefit from it, but we can't argue with it. No, is it a coincidence that I was born into it without doing a single thing? And will continue to succeed without doing anything else.

Except for tickling little fat boys. Nothing I like best when I'm up on the stage is what I'm done strutting and fretting is having a fresh, full-titted little boy that I can pre-turbulate with my... ding appendages, I go underneath his tendril chest meat, I feel upon his woman-like bosom, I touch upon his cavern-like armpits, and I make him giggle like a little brand new otter, freshly born from its...

And he didn't even have the courage to finish you off. Daddy Wahlberg, if you don't want me to call Variety, I need you to come to my home and jerk me off. That's it. Ransom's been set. I'm glad you're finally saying it because you've been saying that in private for years. No, I'm coming for him now. I want to get a fucking, I want you to make me come. Well, John Wilkes Booth. He held the fairly common opinion, it was very common at this time, that black people were actually happier as slaves.

that they were better off in bondage than they were even free in Africa, and that giving black people freedom would only make them miserable, and it would destroy America in the bargain. That's how a lot of people justified slavery. They would say, you know, the... abolitionists would say, look, slavery is obviously evil. And the pro-slavery people will come back and say, like, no, no, no, look at him. He's got a smile on his face.

Everything's fine. Yeah, why would you want to get rid of that? They're having so much fun. They invented grits. They obviously love it. They're singing songs. Yeah, but Booth's prejudices did not stop there. See, even though it was local tradition for landowners to invite the white men who worked with them to join the family dinner table during the harvest, John Wilkes was uneasy letting his British mother and sister eat meals.

With the Irish. That's how angry he was. That's how racist he was. He was even racist against other white people. Well, it was very common at the time. Oh, no, Irish people were not. And the Italians, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And the Germans. Yep. I guess if you weren't British. It's mostly a Catholic thing. Very much a Catholic thing.

So the Irish came to hate the Booths for their arrogance, while the Booths came to hate the Irish and immigration at large because the Irish didn't respect the hierarchy that John Wilkes was so devoted to. Not even one of them, not even one of them danced a jig. I tell them if your performances, the...

fee for entry to dinner. And I thought, oh, grab your little shillelagh and your little green hat and do your little dance, you Irish slave. But then, apparently, they needed to be massaged before. Became more those things where the Irish hate them because they're assholes and then they hate the Irish for hating them. Now it became obvious by the time that John Wilkes was 16 years old that he was not cut out to be an overseer.

Instead of forcing the issue further and taking the family completely into ruin, his mother ended up renting out the family's land to a local farmer. Therefore, John Wilkes was given the opportunity to live a life of leisure. very much typifying himself as the layabout progeny of a celebrity. Actually, now that I think about it, another analog to the Booth family might be the Hanks family. With Junius being Tom, Edwin being Colin, and John Wilkes being... the unfortunate chat. Yes!

I'm allowed to sometimes speak in a patois because I own several Jamaicans. It is going to be a re out there by the beach. I will say for John Wilkes Booth, every summer was indeed. White boy summer. Now, after being given free reign to do whatever, Booth chose to spend most of his time in the local tavern, a place called the Traveler's Home.

But rather than becoming a total deadbeat party boy, Booth latched on to politics whilst conversing with his fellow patrons. Just stay a deadbeat party boy. I would have been better for us all. Also, the Traveler's Home makes no sense. Well, don't worry. It's like the Wanderer's Inn. It's a double entendre. It's aggravating. Don't get angry. Wordplay. Don't get angry. Get even.

Well, during Booth's gap year, he became enamored with one of America's early conspiracist political parties. Why does it all sound so familiar, Marcus? It's about to sound extraordinarily familiar. This party was the highly successful Know-Nothing Party, who were so named because members were required to say, I know nothing in respects to the party's inner workings. And they would do that because the Know-Nothing Party actually started as...

a secret society, like the Freemasons. Yeah, but a bunch of hate-filled... Fuckers. Yes. Weren't they successful for a little while? Extraordinarily so. Like, if you remember Gangs of New York, remember Bill the Butcher? Yeah. Bill the Butcher, Butcher, Know Nothing Party. Yeah, that was him. Now, the Know-Nothings were actually pretty ideologically similar to the modern Republican Party, which is ironic considering how John Wilkes Booth ended up killing the first Republican president.

The Know Nothings were nationalist, populist, and staunchly against immigration. But also, like today's Republicans, what informed the Know Nothings' beliefs more than anything were conspiracy theories. The Know-Nothings believed that Irish and German immigrants were being sent to America as a Catholic plot to take over the country. So every American could be made subservient to the Pope, which is more or less the same bullshit people peddle today in the form of the Great Replacement Theory.

John Wilkes Booth lapped up this hateful shit and became a full member of the Know Nothing Party and was especially jazzed about how much the Know Nothings hated the Irish. You see, that's the problem. It just seems, Marcus. that all of this is not really about religion. It seems to really be a reason for them to be very racist. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe I'm crazy. Yeah. Yeah, it might be, but it's...

It's just a, you know, it's xenophobia all over again. You know, it's the same shit. Just replace one with the other. Replace Catholics with Jews, and it's the exact same thing as the Great Replacement Theory today. I know nothing. Perfect. But... After John Wilkes Booth spent a year absorbing the philosophy of the know-nothings, it seems like the call of the theatre.

finally became too strong to ignore. An easy job? Most lucrative? Thank you! And at 17 years old, Booth began his career as an actor. Right from your grave.

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Now, by this point, Booth's oldest brother had made his way to California, and he'd staked that territory as his claim. But June Booth's out in California. No one's fucking with California. Edwin Booth, the second Booth's son to become an actor. The tragedian. He's often considered the best actor amongst the three. He was the leading tragedian of his day. He's the Billy Skarsgård. He's the Billy Skarsgård, yeah. He took all the eastern states.

But Edwin wasn't too keen on competing with another booth for his father's legacy. So when John Wilkes Booth said, hey, Edwin, I want to be an actor too. I'm ready to perform. Edwin divided the map of the United States into two territories, pretty much along the Mason-Dixon line, taking the north for himself. and banishing John Wilkes to the South. See, Edwin Booth preferred the richer, more urbane cities of the North, like New York, Philadelphia, Boston. But this seemingly small decision...

based mostly on taste, would actually have huge consequences for American history. As the old entertainment adage goes, you play for the crowd that shows up.

And once John Wilkes Booth began playing for Southern audiences, his ideology naturally grew to match that of the people who are giving him the most attention. And another echo to modern times, which is just John Wilkes Booth in the end really was looking for attention. He liked any form of validation he could get in anything that also made him feel special, which is what the persecution complex. of being on an unpopular side of the political spectrum gives you automatically. Yeah.

And to this day, he's considered the worst actor because the booth theater on Broadway is named after Edwin, not John Wilkes or Julius. Well, he's the good, but he was the good actor. Yeah. John Wilkes Booth was just very, very good at killing Abraham Lincoln. He didn't get away. Well, no, but no one was going to. He was never going to. Now that there was a booth boy covering most of the American territories, the booth name was more famous than ever.

To give you an idea of just how famous the Booths were, it was massive news when Junius Booth's first wife died, because it gave the papers an excuse to gossip about the Booth family and bring up the scandal of Junius's this abandoned family all over again. But the revival of the scandal did little to prevent John Wilkes Booth from ascending into fame in the South. In 1859, two years before the Civil War broke out, John Wilkes Booth began a run of performances.

at the Marshall Theater in Richmond, Virginia, where he got rave reviews that also bizarrely mentioned his, quote, Beautiful hands and small feet. They always talk about the small feet. And then there was another one. They were like, he does a... They say how graceful he is. Because he was a...

physical actor. Very physical. He said that was the difference between him and the other booths was that he was like very like he'd jump and he'd run and stuff and I don't think he was a good talker though. Interestingly though there were cultural distinctions between the north and the south.

that brought John Wilkes Booth closer to his audiences, and therefore closer to their opinions about slavery. See, in the North, and I find this fascinating, actors were placed on the outskirts of society, as I would assume as because it had been traditional in England that actors were...

Garbage. Actors were prostitutes. There was a direct correlation. They were considered the lowest station. They were not supposed to hang out anywhere. They were not supposed to be given loans. They weren't supposed to. Actors were viewed as utter vagabonds that literally. should not be trusted with serious...

Opinion, like serious questions and serious responsibilities. Professional liars. Which is what I hope to still have to this day. And that's what I would like to still receive. Just know that I'm too dumb and I'm too hot. But in the South, in the American South, an actor had real social status.

See, Booth had been burdened throughout his life by the shame of his birth and the periodic reappearance of his father's scandals in the papers. So he was amazed at how the people of Richmond, Virginia had brought him into their society and accepted him. And that's a funny thing to think about is it's the American South that began the tradition of like, but you're famous. You can do anything. Yeah, we like it. It doesn't matter. You're famous. Every single thing they accuse.

anybody else of they were the ones doing it right so it's like it's always this constant need of like they started this I think it's partially It's because no one was serving the Southern states properly. Yeah. So then when somebody as quote unquote elevated as a John Wilkes Booth of the Booth family chooses the Southern states, doesn't know that he's being regular.

relegated to the Southern States. He knew that he was being relegated to the Southern States. John Wilkes did. The people didn't. They thought he's coming out of the goodness of his heart to bring some of that booth magic to the South. He's going to, we're going to raise him up because He chose.

And then we're going to be in this feedback loop of shitheads choosing shitheads because shitheads like shitheads. Very good. Yeah, exactly right. Because that because the Richmond's acceptance of John Wilkes Booth made John.

John Wilkes accept Richmond and how Richmond worked and how Richmond worked was entirely on slavery. John Wilkes Booth was also a ladies man in Richmond. whose exploits were so well-known around town that one critic claimed that Booth's popularity with women showed that he had a, quote, worthless moral nature that corrupted his acting. And if there's one thing we know, an actor needs...

Deep moral nature. Deep moral fiber. Powerful regulation. The greatest actors of our time. Nothing but morality amongst them. Sean Penn. Jack Nicholson. Jack Nicholson. Old drippy dick himself. James Woods. Unfortunately, we actually don't know a lot about John Wilkes' love affairs because he was discreet in his correspondence. He was also probably a little shy because of his father's scandals. Edwin Booth was not discreet at all.

They talked about Edwin Booth and the tabloids all the time. His romantic exploits were fodder for the gossip brags. Well, he was cooler than his brother. Much cooler, yeah. But one thing that John Wilkes Booth was not afraid to write about in Richmond was how much he approved of slavery. Yeah, we're right about the fucking. Booth found that the strict racial hierarchy in Richmond was a relief. And he wrote that it was proof that slavery created only, quote, the happiness of master and man.

This belief, of course, clashed wildly with the event that fully radicalized John Wilkes Booth. See, while John Wilkes Booth was certainly pro-slavery, I think it might be more accurate to say that Booth was more anti-abolitionist. Because the event that pushed John Wilkes Booth fully into extremism was the assault on Harper's Ferry. led by the radical abolitionist John Brown.

I watched most of that show that, what's his name was in? Good Lord Bird. Yeah, man, with Ethan Hawke. That show's amazing. He's an amazing, the character's fascinating. He's fucking awesome. Yeah, John Brown's super fascinating. He's an amazing character. Don't put it past John Wilkes Booth to absolutely hate black people. Well, no. I said that he was definitely pro-slavery, but I think it was more an anti-abolitionist thing. Well, that was definitely who he wanted to kill. Yeah.

He hated Abilet because that's the thing is that you... Can't really have the world that he loves and the world that he enjoys without black people because you need black people to be slaves in his world. But they have to be slaves. Yes, they have to be slaves. They have to be. But in John Wilkes, but abolitionists are the ones that. are trying to remove that world from John Wilkes. They're trying to take it away from him. And that's what I say no to!

Well, as far as the assault on Harper's Ferry goes, on October 16th, 1859, John Brown led 22 men into a federal arsenal in Virginia to seize control of the facility and the weapons contained therein. Brown's hope was that the local slave population would rise up and join the raid, and using the arsenal's weapons, they would start a slave rebellion that would spread across the South. Admittedly, this was not a great plan.

Even Frederick Doug, like, John Brown got a hold of Frederick Doug. Douglass is like, hey, man, you want in on this? And Frederick Douglass is like, no. He actually says, like, this is suicide. It's not going to work. As it turned out, Frederick Douglass was right, because even though Brown and his men easily captured the arsenal, no one came to Brown's aid. The governor of Virginia soon sent in troops, led by Robert E. Lee.

future general of the Confederacy. And Lee squashed the rebellion and captured John Brown so he could be publicly tried and hung in short order. Now, didn't Robert E. Lee was considered one of our, like... best generals right before he left and then he went and that's why he was such kind of like a formidable even after like even during the civil war he still can he still considered to be one of the greatest military minds as far as yes as far as generals go

Yeah, I'm not saying he was a great guy. Yeah, there's no moral. Yeah, it's like. He was good at being a general. So was, you know, Ernst Rommel, you know, the Desert Fox. He was great, great general. I loved his work as a general.

But in the weeks between Brown's capture and his hanging, conspiracy theories began to swirl the raid had been funded and planned by abolitionist politicians. Politicians like Lincoln's eventual Secretary of State, William... Seward. If you'll remember Seward was also the other man that John Wilkes Booth and his co-conspirators tried to murder on the night of Lincoln's killing.

As a result of these conspiracy theories, talk of Southern secession from the Union increased dramatically after the assault on Harper's Ferry. In fact, often been referred to since as the dress rehearsal for the upcoming Civil War. But as far as how John Wilkes Booth reacted to John Brown's raid, Booth had been preparing for a role in a play, a play with the scintillating title of...

The filibuster. And that's when the governor of Virginia announced that a group of abolitionists were planning to break John Brown out of prison. For some reason, John Wilkes Booth decided that this was his moment. Answering the governor's call to keep John Brown in prison, Booth immediately abandoned his commitment to the theater and boarded a train that was transporting the Virginia militia to where John Brown was being held. Further encouragement for John Wilson. What, that guy fight naked?

You had an extra. I thank you for this uniform, but unfortunately it is not as form-fitting as I would. Like, if I could, can I wear this fine, fine silk brush, eh? And these wonderful, oh, these are knickers all the way from Paris, France. And I will adorn these to inspire. my fellow militiamen to oh so fight all the bad guys. And may I borrow one of your wool socks for my...

If my uniform is not satisfactory, then may I make use of your malicious tailor? How may I perform properly if I'm not inspired? by my outfit. Now, I hate to be picky, but isn't Gray a bit... Drabby. I know that you are called the Virginia Graves. Yes, I'm aware of this. But what about the Virginia Lime Greens? Listen, the Virginia? Vermilions. Think about it. Fine colors. Well, I guess I'll go back to William Musk. Well, as it turned out...

There was no abolitionist plan to break John Brown out of prison. It was just another conspiracy theory that was dreamed up by the increasingly twitchy southerners. So John Wilkes Booth and the rest of the soldiers ended up just standing outside the courthouse to quote-unquote provide security until John Brown was to be hung. You heard him, boys. Everybody keep standing. Keep standing. Now some of you may sit, the fatter ones. Now give the other fatter ones sit for a little bit. Now I will sit.

Because I am tired. Perhaps someone could go on a coffee run. Perhaps someone, have you heard of the Starbucks? Someone get a Starbucks rum going. That's what happens. They get riled up because they hear this. Rumors start to swirl. They start to hear these conspiracy theories. They think it's real. They go, and then they spend two weeks.

riling themselves up even more, convincing themselves that they have to be there, that they're serving some sort of purpose. They're cosplaying. Yeah, they're cosplaying. Which is very similar to what we're dealing with right now. Yes. Well, John Wilkes Booth was cosplaying.

The rest of the guys, many of them died in the Civil War very quickly. Good! Good, because if they weren't at the theater anyway, then they weren't proper patrons of the arts, were they? But yeah, Booth cosplayed. He stood sentinel.

serving Virginia's so-called state's cause. This barrel is safe. This lantern. He's still lighting the way of slavery. And it gave him the illusion of glory without any of the associated dangers. But he could convince himself that he was in danger the entire time. And when John... John Brown was finally hung when he went out there with his head held high. John Wilkes Booth was in the crowd watching.

Now, one of John Wilkes Booth's defining characteristics was the idea, as I said earlier, that life was a performance. And as a consequence, Booth was an inveterate liar who had a habit of inserting himself into history. After the fact, of course. This actually began around the time of John Brown. Because Booth started telling people that he'd been involved in Brown's actual capture, when in reality, Booth was in a theater running lines for the filibuster hundreds of miles away.

Buster, come here. Buster, come here. No, no, no. Let me just try it one more time. Buster, come here. I have a filling for you. Buster, come closer. I'm going to go. I'm going to go find somewhere where I can fight for slavery. Was it just him improv-ing for two days? You look over here! Where's my little fat boy? I can't rehearse. Like many liars, Booth was also a born contrarian.

Both, for example, only became more pro-slavery as the abolitionist movement became more popular nationwide. In my mind, I would imagine Booth called the abolitionist movement the 19th century equivalent of gay. Or woke. You know, one of those things. That's how Booth's mind operated. He's very much a bro. A Booth's run towards the pro-slavery movement at this point in time could have been Booth supporting Southern causes because the people who loved him as an actor were themselves Southern.

But Booth also said that he was inspired by John Brown's courage in the face of death. He was also inspired by Brown's willingness to take action instead of just talking about it. As such, Booth claimed that he wanted to be his own version.

of John Brown he said this out loud to people But where John Brown was so opposed to the idea of slavery that he was willing to die for even the hope of putting an end to it, John Wilkes Booth wanted to have that same passion for supporting the institution of slavery. That's all I want. I just want to be John Brown, but a guy that John Brown would kill. You know what I mean? But like many Southerners,

Booth became convinced that John Brown was a part of a vast conspiracy whose only goal was to ruin the South and the lives of all Southerners through the abolition of slavery. But don't they understand that if you ruin the economy of half the country just to...

get them it doesn't really make any sense yeah because it seems that uh that that would affect everybody yeah it seems like it fucks everybody's lives yeah fucking it all up for you it's almost like no we're just trying to recreate a moral mandate like maybe try to save some of the idea of this country Maybe. Maybe.

Booth, however, had two problems when it came to putting his money where his mouth was and defending slavery with the same bravery that Brown had in defeating it. Most importantly, like a lot of actors who pretend to be tough guys, Booth was a fucking coward and dressing up like a militia.

and pretending to guard a courthouse against non-existent abolitionists was the closest he ever got to actual fighting at any point before or during the Civil War. Booth's excuse for not fighting, however, was that his mother... had already lost too many children, and she supposedly made Wilkes promise that he would never go to war. So he didn't fight in the Civil War because of his mommy? Because his mommy said he couldn't. My mommy told me that I could not. All right? And I'm a slave.

To my mommy. I mean, even the way he killed Lincoln was cowardly. He shot him in the back when he wasn't paying attention. Exactly. Oh, yeah.

No, everything about him is extraordinarily cowardly. If he would have fought Lincoln, Lincoln would have kicked the fucking shit out of him. Oh, my God. I would never in a million years fight Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln would have fucking pinned him down. Not only would have beaten him, he would have been the crosslock. He would have kissed him. He would have married him.

Surely Abraham Lincoln would have destroyed his life. Abraham Lincoln's the strongest gay man since Hugh Jackman. Phenomenal wrestler. 301 or something. Yes.

Now, John Wilkes Booth is, of course, the main character in this series, but there is another half to this story. After all, who would John Wilkes Booth be without Abraham Lincoln? You need me, Batman! See, at this point in American history, this is around 1859, 1860.

Lincoln was on his way towards earning the Republican nomination for president. And for those of you fuzzy on history, this was a time when the Republicans were the party against slavery while the Democrats were trying to keep it legal. It's all flip-flop.

Abraham Lincoln, however, still took the moderate opinion on John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry by saying that a violent approach to abolition would always fail. His moderation ended up unifying the Republicans, and it earned Lincoln the nomination for president in May of... 1860. Nice! Hell yeah, Lincoln! Good work, Abe! I'm always here for you, Abe. I'm your number one fan. Need me to hold your hat? All right, well, I'll just stay over here. Hey, Mary Todd, how you doing? Looking sad.

Booth meanwhile spent the year 1860 morphing into what would have been the 19th century equivalent of an action star. Like his father, Booth was naturally athletic, and he soon became a skilled fencer and fighter who was able to nail the sword fight choreography required for certain Shakespearean performances at the time. Booth would definitely...

be the guy. That's why I keep thinking Mark Wahlberg would be him getting up every day being like, I get up each morning 5.45. I have nine eggs. Then you see me here in my cold plunge. Then I'm over here in my workout room. Then I go pray, get prayed up. Then I go and I spend time with the family I'm allowed to see. And then I act.

Then I come back, back to the gym, nine eggs. Well, as a result of his action star prowess, Wilkes earned his big break when he was given the title role in Romeo and Juliet in a production that toured across the South.

But as you may have already guessed, John Wilkes Booth, he was kind of what we'd now call a bro. Sure. And he got himself in trouble for doing bro-y shit on the regular. For example, right in the middle of Booth's highly successful run on Romeo and Juliet. This is his big break. This is when he's at the top of it. Not necessarily at the top of his game, but he's getting there.

Booth was running his lines one evening when he noticed that his stage manager was carrying a pistol in his back pocket. Okay. I'm thinking that it would just be fucking hilarious if he grabbed the gun and fired it in the air just to like scare the shit out of the stage manager. Let's get fucking. shit out of it like it'd be so fucking funny yes like booth grab the weapon

And the stage manager did not appreciate Booth's sense of humor. Cats! No, it's a funny joke! It's a funny prank! I'm gonna shoot your gun at you! And so the two of them got into a tussle while the stage manager tried to wrest control of the gun back from... You'll never outwrestle John Wilkes Booth. My beautiful feet, my beautiful small feet are uncontainable. Boom. Gun goes off. John Wilkes Booth shoots himself in the thigh.

Holy fucking shit! Holy shit! This hurts! Wow! This hurts! Oh, fuck! He spends three weeks in the hospital. Oh, my God. What's the guy doing with a gun in his pocket anyway? Get a holster. It's 1859. Yeah. Or it's 1860. Come on. Yeah, he's having fun with it. Why is everyone going to have rules? I mean, how else are you going to manage the stage, I guess? Yeah, you got to make sure it's at gunpoint. Curtains down! Lights, go on!

In another mishap, Booth accidentally cut his co-star's forehead with a dagger in the middle of a performance, then almost immediately after, fell on that same dagger, which slashed away three inches of flesh from Booth's armpits. Jesus Christ. I'm really getting fucked up. This is cool, right? I do my own stunts. Ow! Isn't this cool? Please, somebody tell me I'm cool. It hurts so bad. I need to be cool. Please confirm that I'm cool and you like me.

Well, Booth finished the performance, and when the news broke, he was lauded for his dedication to his craft. Yes, and I definitely did all of the Tempest while covered in blood. Now, to be fair, Booth was considered to be a phenomenal actor across the South.

He was a crowd favorite. He was a critic's darling. But partly, the reason why Booth was loved was because he appeared to be a tough guy who also had the right politics to be popular in the South. I would kind of compare him to like a Mel Gibson. like Clint Eastwood. So he would have been a better director than an actor.

Maybe. You think that Clint Eastwood's a better... I actually think that Clint Eastwood's a better actor than a director, actually. Well, he's won Oscars for directing. He's never been nominated for acting. I love his acting. I prefer him as an actor to a director. Man, when's the last...

time you saw Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. That's a good one, but I think Mel Gibson's actually sadly a better director than an actor. Technically, Apocalypto's a very impressive film. Phenomenal film. Alright, we gotta stop loving these guys. Sorry, I'm just getting that John Wolfe spoof mindset. News great, John Voight. That's why, like, a guy who fucks his daughter and tells everybody about it. That's what I like, a proud believer.

John Wilkes Booth's world, however, would come crashing down... along with all the other Southerners in November of 1860, when Abraham Lincoln was elected president. Lincoln won the entire North, but not a single state in the South, partly because the South, like a bunch of whiny little bitches, had refused to even put Lincoln on the ballot. No, I can vote for Lincoln. I don't like him. No, I don't let you vote for him. You don't like him.

that's crazy so he really just beat the shit out of the other guys yeah yeah and the democrat well the democrats were also split like they were very fractured at this point because not every single democrat was pro-slavery but most of them were so you know the party was split and

you know the democrats kind of split the vote in the south no one really got the majority you know and they didn't get enough votes in the electoral college but yeah lincoln fucking wiped the floor with them can i say can i honestly ask in this time period were more people like is it kind of like the long like the reasonable

view was to be sort of anti like to be slowly anti-slavery and that eventually yes I know that that's like the big fight that everybody says is that it would fuck with the economy of the south but wouldn't that also fuck with the economy of the north I mean I don't know I can honestly say

I don't know. I really don't know what the prevailing opinion was at the time. I mean, if that's where all the cotton's coming from, the price goes up, it's going to affect the North, sure. But, you know, at the end of the day... Fucking slavery. Yeah, exactly. You'll have them boys. No, it's a good, another fun little fact about this election. Stephen Douglas, the guy who Lincoln ran against, he was with Mary Todd before Lincoln. And Lincoln fucking stole her and then won the election. Whoa.

He fucked your girl, he's got the election, and he's bi. And he's tall. Well, as a consequence of Lincoln's election, Southern cries of secession were immediate. Southerners projected... It's the same shit. They just started projecting immediately, saying that the North, they were the real disunionists. They were the ones who were actually tearing the country apart because they're trying to abolish slavery. Now, naturally, John Wilkes Booth agreed with this opinion, right?

during his tour of the South that Northern abolitionists were the true traitors to the nation whose treason must be, quote, stamped to death. And as it went, after Lincoln's election, states began seceding en masse. and after the Confederacy was officially formed, the Civil War began on April 12, 1861, with the South's attack on Fort Sumter. Nope.

John Wilkes, as I said earlier, John Wilkes Booth would never enlist in the Confederate Army, despite identifying as, quote, strongly Southern for his fellow actors. I'm more Southern than most, y'all. Oh, y'all. Oh, I love a good chicklin' or two. Don't I? Don't I, mother? Well, instead of joining the Confederate Army, Booth would just talk a big game about participating in so-called

acts of resistance throughout the war. I'm better here. Burning bridges. He said, I burned bridges. I burned a bridge last night. I tore up railroad tracks last night. Oh, that riot that was in over a few towns over. I was there. I was there and I always burn bridges to light the way. of the people that don't understand me. So it's actually kind of even more so, not even really burning of physical bridges, it's more metaphorical. I'm burning bridges to the old thoughts I had.

So yes, but a lot of the times I'm acting. Booth, of course, did none of this. He did nothing. because he was far too busy building his career as an actor to take part in any resistance throughout the bulk of the war. You prefer me to be on stage. I'm delivering the message. I'm helping the message of slavery by showing that I'm a slave. to my mommy and the snitch. I tell you what, I'll entertain your wife.

Send your wives! Send the wives! You would not like your wives to be bored during this war, would you, sir? Or make them laugh, or make them cry, or make them shoot, or make them shit. I'll do everything you need. Well, as one of his colleagues later put it, John Wilkes Booth would never have been able to handle the indignities of a soldier's life because Booth had no desire to give up his identity as Junius Booth's son to become an anonymous Confederate soldier.

shitting himself to death in a field somewhere in the ass into Pennsylvania. Do you see these size four shoes? Do you see these absolutely delicate hands? This can't be in mud. I have a rash from silk. I'm wearing, I'm covered in silk. I have an active rash right now. But ironically, it was during the war that John Wilkes Booth would become famous in the North as well as the South. Booth's brother Edwin, most likely sick of just dealing with America's fucking bullshit.

left to tour Europe in 1862. This left an opening in the northern cities for John Wilkes Booth to finally make a name for himself on both sides of the Mason-Dixon. 1862 was actually the height of Booth's career, in which he performed in 33 cities in both the North and the South. This earned Booth nearly a half million dollars in today's money, which is...

Great fucking cash for a theater actor. Oh, yeah. But eventually, Booth's mouth began to get the better of him. After a performance in Chicago, Booth was drinking in a saloon with his fellow actors when he remarked, seemingly out of nowhere. I'll tell you something. What a glorious opportunity there is for a man to immortalize himself by killing Lincoln.

Booth's fellow actors asked him, hey, what the fuck are you talking about? Killing the president of the United States of America. I'm going to go do it right now. Now, once I'm done with this gin and seltzer. Booth, of course, refused to elaborate any further. That won't do it. But because of that bizarre statement made three years before Lincoln's assassination.

Booth was never welcomed back in Chicago, which I would assume only fueled Booth's persecution complex. You can't fucking say anything these days. Everybody says, comedy's illegal. Comedy's illegal now. Someone's gonna make comedy legal. Keep your dirty Italian beefs. I hate your deep dish fucking slop. You put pickles on hot dogs, you fucking prick. Son of a shit. Same shit that happens.

Over and over again, people isolate themselves by saying awful shit and then blame everybody else when they don't want to be around them because they say awful shit. But you don't understand, Marcus. You have to hear their shit. That's right. That's the only way you're... free is that you have to engage with them. I'm forced to engage with them. That's what freedom is. I'm forced to engage with their bullshit. Oh yeah. Oh yeah.

Now, while hundreds of thousands of men were dying on battlefields across America, Booth continued playing the tough guy on stage. I doubt you'll get within six feet of me on the footboards. He pretended that his so-called sacrifices for... his art were akin to being wounded in war for example during the 1863 season booth developed a tumor on his neck that needed to be removed so he went to a surgeon plopped himself down in the chair and dramatic told the man, quote, Now cut away!

But when the surgeon began slicing Booth's neck and dark blood gushed out, Booth went pale and lost consciousness. Against doctor's orders, Booth went on stage that very night. where he tore open his stitches. His foolhardy behavior resulted in a nasty scar, but both used even that to further aggrandize himself with one of two lies about how he got that scar. Oh, you want to know? How I got these scars. I'll tell you. I was...

Absolutely railing your fucking mother. And her pussy. Whatever. No, it couldn't just be that, like, oh, I got a tumor removed and I was an idiot because I did. didn't take the night off. It already sounds like badass. Yeah, it does sound cool. It does sound cool, yeah. But he would much rather it be, I got shot in the neck. Or he would say that when he got shot in the thigh when he was playing with his friend's gun, that the bullet had traveled up.

through his entire body and had lodged itself in his neck, but Booth had worked the bullet out himself using his incredible throat muscles. I think this is not an exaggeration. It did enter into... the area just above my penis and went and I felt it bounce off my pelvis, off my right lung, up into my throat. But as it came into my throat, I went... And using theatricality, I push the bullet out of my mouth. So yes, sir, I can take your full penis. Straight up to the jewels. Right to the hilt.

Nope. While Booth was fucking around on stage throughout the year 1863, the number of actual casualties in the Civil War were adding up to staggering numbers. And even when you convert those losses into modern proportions, it's almost impossible. It's almost like there's nothing civil about this war. By the end of the war, 2% of America's population had died either in battle or because of disease.

Taking that from today's population, this would be just about the equivalent of wiping the populations of Chicago, Houston, and half of Los Angeles off the map. Just fucking gone. Why'd you choose those cities? Because they are in the top five of a population in America. Oh, wow. They're amongst the top five. That was just frightening. It's just being very specific. Chicago, Houston. Half of Los Angeles. Guess which half?

Sounds like you have a plan. I didn't realize Phoenix had such a large population. There should not be that many people living in that desert. I mean, it's just hard out there, buddy. It's the before picture for Mad Max. It is. It's going to get real hard out there in about 30 years.

But while the overall numbers of the dead are unfathomable, even the number of dead soldiers in the individual battles were horrifying. In just the Battle of Gettysburg alone, the North lost at least a quarter of their active... soldiers, and those numbers could not be replaced with regular enlistment. Is it just because

We just were throwing bodies at stuff. It was the mechanization of war. Yeah. It was the, what's the. It was like World War I tactics right before World War I tactics. Well, yeah. Well, it's the old saying that like the strategies of the last war are always used.

against the weapons of this war. Yes. So they're trying to do musket battle in an age where there are machine guns. Yeah, so the guys are just getting fucking rolled over and hitting with cannons and shit and they're going to explode and shit. Tens of thousands of men killed in a single day. And not only...

that but people are dying of disease left and right so it's just so much disease and how long were the battles like i know they lasted days but like the fight couldn't have lasted more than a couple of minutes right like how long can a person fight to the death. It's much longer than you think. Yeah, people, it's long. And these battlefields are fucking huge. The number one cause of death was infection. Yeah.

It was all the bullets were soft. They were made in giant presses and like they were made on masses and the bullets were made out of really soft lead. And so they used to hit you and they wouldn't even penetrate to the organs. They would stick into the first couple of layers of your skin and flatten and then they would pop them out.

and then there would be bits and chunks of them still left inside of you and then that would get infected and then you'd die real bad. Yeah, if it smells like cheese, you've got to cut off a limb. That's what they say.

Now, even though Gettysburg was considered the turning point in the war for the Union... Is that a thing you say all the time? It smells like cheese, you gotta cut it off. It smells like cheese, you gotta cut it off. It smells like cheese, you gotta cut it off. All right, well, good. Good to know.

I don't know why that's how my mind's been working lately. It's just turning phrases into songs. I do it too. I'm just doing it constantly now. Oh no, I saw the movie The Woman in the Yard and all I do now is The Woman in the Yard. There's a woman in the yard. You know what it is? If I'm not talking to you guys, I'm talking to dogs. Yeah, like literally. Literally. I'm just talking to the dogs and to myself. Nope.

Like I said, Gettysburg was considered the turning point in the war for the unions, like summer of 1863. But the numbers of volunteers had dropped dramatically because people were all too aware of how many men were dying in battle. But the Union couldn't win without more soldiers. So Lincoln instituted the draft, the first of its kind in American history, in which any man between the ages of 20 and 24 who could not afford to pay the government $300...

or hire a substitute, any of those dudes were eligible for conscription. The announcement of the draft, however, set off a five-day-long riot in the streets of New York City. And incredibly, both Edwin... and John Wilkes Booth happened to be in New York when the riot kicked off. It's the end of Gangs of New York. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Wild fucking week. Incredible, yeah.

With an earshot of the booth's front steps, men were lynched and their bodies were burned. And only blocks away, 5,000 people armed with stones and clubs entered a full battle royale with the cops. It's Pirates of Penza! still going on for the evening? I don't know. Will anybody want to see you meet me in St. Louis? Oh, but I've been so looking forward to performing alongside Jinx Monsoon. Love our pairing.

Well, the riots in New York, the draft day riots, they were pretty much the closest that John Wilkes Booth came to ever being involved in combat. And to be fair, it was said that Wilkes did step in during the riot to defend a wounded Union soldier and the soldier's black servant. It was a friend of his. But Wilkes did so only to make people believe that he was not aligned with the South.

as Booth was later heard to remark to his sister, quote, Imagine me helping that wounded soldier with my rebel sinews. The way he fucking talks. Rebel sinews. I just love him. I watched a really great, old, very bad TV movie called The Lincoln Conspiracy. And it's like that guy, he's just got a big mustache glued to his face. And that's all he does is be like, this cannot stand this tyranny.

Germany must be faced. And just like that idea of him just going and being like, because he's obviously helping a Union soldier. Yeah. He's helping a Union soldier. So being like, can you even believe that I'm doing this? This is crazy. Imagine me. Me helping. Got us all tickets. Yeah. That is literally why you did it. Now, the draft made Booth hate Abraham Lincoln even more. And not just because it had put Booth's life into danger indirectly. Lincoln, in Booth's view, wasn't playing fair.

because Lincoln was relying on the high rates of Irish immigration to grow the union's ranks. This, of course, also made Booth hate the Irish more as well. Ooh, you damn Irish! Ooh, I hate so many things! I'm starting to think they're not that lucky. But the riots did mark a change in Booth's behavior. Whereas before, he'd been more or less like a harmless bro with shitty opinions.

Booth was now getting physically violent and was known to end conversations about the war by pulling out his gun or physically choking the other person. But in an amazing intersection in history, Abraham Lincoln... ever the huge theater fan, he did actually attend a John Wilkes Booth performance just a few months after the draft riots in New York. Lincoln was not impressed. I'll give you my review!

He's mid. Lincoln's private secretary later commented that Booth's appeal was in his, quote, romantic beauty, but that Booth possessed no real talent. Yeah, he's quite a looker and he's got... He's got a good big masculine feminine chest. He's got a big bulbous rump. That's what I like out of my actors. Whatever, guys. Fuck you both. It all can't be the best I've ever done. No, no, no. It's fine. Well, what's telling here? This is very telling for me. Lincoln.

never went to see another John Wilkes Booth performance. He had ample opportunity, but Lincoln did see Edwin Booth six times. Oh, jealous. He had a preference. And John Wilkes Booth knew that. Yep. Now, there's been a lot of speculation over the years that John Wilkes Booth turned towards conspiracy because his career was on the wane. But that could not be further from the truth. I don't think it helped. Well, that's the thing. His career was never on the wane.

Usually, an article citing Booth's voice as hoarse is put forth as evidence for this theory. But that was one bad review in a sea of positive notices. Really, the only complaint people had about John Wilkes Booth is that he went off book too much.

But other people, that's exactly why they loved him. He's like, he's the best improviser of his time. You know what it was, was that his relevancy was fading, much like we're seeing with a lot of- It wasn't, though. But I mean, what you're saying in terms of the Confederacy going down, him being- The cool.

in his mind, Southern Confederate, like he's a Confederate actor. But at this point, he's famous in the North now, too. Yeah. But it's tenue, but he doesn't like the North. Yeah, he doesn't like the North. That is true. He does not like the North. But it's also like, you know, how people like Schwarzenegger.

You know, he's an action star. You know, but it's like, he's not, you know, Liam Neeson's the only guy who can do both. That is true. Arnold Schwarzenegger! What are you talking about? Twins! Oh, yeah. Kindergarten cop. He was great in those. He's great in twins. You don't think Arnold Schwarzenegger's good in twins. I enjoy it, but he's not good. He's a junior. He's great in junior. Junior's one of the worst movies ever made. I like Arnold Schwarzenegger after that.

I think he's a funny guy. Jingle all the way. I enjoy Arnold Schwarzenegger. Don't think I don't. I like him as a funny actor. But he's not good. He's a funny guy. He's very funny. He's very funny. Him and Sinbad in Jingle on the Way can't be bested. Well, because Sinbad's so good. But they have good comedic chemistry. Sinbad brought the best out of Arnold Schwarzenegger. He was bigger than him, I think. Sinbad's gigantic. Yes, big guy. Well, really, back to Joe Mulkspooth. Great actor.

Really, what was on the wane in the mid 1860s was the Confederacy. By 1864, the South was running dangerously low on manpower due to a series of battles that had resulted in large numbers of captured Confederate soldiers. The POW situation was, of course, the moment of illumination. for John Wilkes Booth. Perhaps thinking back to John Brown, Booth began to believe that he might know how to single-handedly bring about victory for the South. Although again, it must be said that it was...

Far too late for Booth to really do anything meaningful for the cause at this point. But before Booth could join the fight in his own way, at long last, even if it was too late, he had to free up his schedule. That's the most important thing! Bring me my planner. Hold the war. How about Tuesday? I can end the war on Tuesday.

Booth therefore began to wind down his acting career on his own accord. Booth's last big run was a highly successful... 30-night engagement at the Boston Museum, performing the only play his father ever wrote, Ugolino, which is a dark little number heavy on murder and betrayal. It doesn't really sound that good. I read the synopsis. Doesn't sound great. Someone really ugly. Imagine an ugly boy.

No. Oglolino. A little Oglolino. I am a too Italian. Nobody wants to marry my son. I am a too Italian to be ugly. Sure. Yeah, let's go ahead and say that's the plot. It's a really ugly eight-year-old Italian boy who wants to marry a 50-year-old woman. Yeah, played by John Wilkes Booth. Oh, Uglino. Oh, Uglino. Well, soon after that run...

Booth wrote a letter to his sister in which Booth seems to try very hard to justify why he still hasn't contributed to the fight for his beloved confederacy, even though the war has been going on for... Three years at this point. But he also, while he's justifying it, he's also simultaneously talking about how awesome he is. This is what he wrote. My brains are worth 20 men.

My money worth a hundred. I have a free pass everywhere. My profession, my name is my passport. My knowledge of drugs is valuable. My beloved precious money. Is the means. One of the means. By which I serve the South. Money. Drugs. Hanging out. Being me. Having fun. hating everything in my sight. I hate, hate, hate. And they just, like, they need me here again.

And so, by the time the next presidential election rolled around in 1864, John Wilkes Booth was actively discussing plans with his Confederate friends to snatch Abraham Lincoln for leverage in a massive prisoner exchange.

that just might turn the tide of the war back to the South. Before long, though, that plan would fall to the wayside to be replaced with something far simpler. Let's just kill the motherfucker. And it's with the plotting, failing, and plotting again...

that will return to our series on the assassination of Abraham Lincoln next week. Yeah, dude. And then we can also talk about it, too. A lot of the conspiracy theories, talking about how he was a spy and he did all of this shit. We will bring that up, I think.

next episode or the episode after. Yeah, maybe the episode after when we talk about the manhunt. Because he was always talking about how this was another big thing you'll find out later on is that he was talking about being a spy. The Confederacy used him. Well, he was... A liar. Yes. At all times. He reminds me of a certain other three named assassin that is very, very similar. Yeah. Yeah. Which one? Thomas Riddick Hardingley.

Lee Harvey Oswald. Yes. Oh, no, but I remember Thomas Riddick Hardingley. Hardingley, he... He killed Dr. Baroom. Yep, Dr. Baroom. And he was a singer, not an actor. No. Yes. Singer with his feet. Tap dancer. Senator Dr. Adrian Barone. Winston Adrian Barone. I remember him. Very good at killing. Senator from the Bahamas.

Please create the Wikipedia page. Guys, thank you for joining us. Very thick opening. You know what? We did good too because it wasn't just context. We literally are just telling the story. It was difficult to not put it... I had to pull back on the... He did. I had to pull my context pants up quite a bit. He did. I feel like John Brown could have been... He deserves his own episode. Oh, yeah. Harper's Ferry deserves its own episode. I actually had a very hard time.

Pulling back on both that and the Christiana riots. They're both fascinating stories. And then the fucking New York draft riots. That was the hardest one of all. That was the hardest one of all. We did a good job, guys. We're telling one of the stories. We're going to have so much time to talk about all of it. I love New York history. Because we're going to be doing the show for the rest of our lives. Go to patreon.com.

on the left. Give us money so that we can continue to do this for the rest of our lives. You can also watch us do our Patreon show live every Tuesday. We made a little bit of an announcement of our change of our streaming shows, but I want to just again say last stream on the left is

exactly the same. Exactly. Nothing is changing about it. It is going to be live on Patreon every Tuesday and it's going to go to YouTube once it goes up on the, I believe it's every Thursday. So that is, nothing is changing. Otherwise, go and see all of our socials. LP on the left for some reason. And then go to lastpodcastontheleft.com to buy tickets for our live shows. That's right. We got...

Atlanta in June, Salt Lake City July, Charlotte and Durham in August, St. Paul in September, Milwaukee and Oakland in October, Cleveland in November, and two shows in Portland in December. Come see us live. fucking excited to be on the road.

Can't wait to go to Cleveland, the record store. They're so fucking good. I'm there for the burgers. Yeah, I love Cleveland. They got really good burgers in Cleveland. That's what I hear anyway. I've never been to Cleveland, but I hear about good burgers, and Cleveland's got a good reputation for burgers. You, sir, are going to fucking adore Cleveland.

Cleveland. I love Cleveland. Cleveland's one of my favorite cities in America. I'm already buying spray paint. Yeah, that's the key. Leave your mark, Eddie. And thank you for being with us. Oh, yeah. And go see, go get CrimeWave at Steve.com. Bye for a true crime cruise.

That's going to be a lot of fun. I go to Contact of the Desert and buy tickets for that as well. And we promise not to die like John Wilkes Booth's brother on that cruise. I promise you we won't. We're going to live. Father.

And he was saved by some quick-thinking sailors. And so all we need is some quick-thinking... No, I was talking about the one who shit himself to death on the Mississippi River. That's also his father. That's also his father. Yeah, that's also his father. So yes, please don't shit you. Neither one of you are allowed to shit yourself to death on a fucking cruise ship. No, I'm saving... I'm gonna try! I'm going to save that for my family when I'm 90.

How old is this shrimp? Not old enough. Excellent. I only like shrimp that's old enough to drink. Is this shrimp aged? Yum. I love how you add a fine air-dried shrimp. All right. That's what these people call it. Okay. Hail John Brown. Fuck yeah. Hey, this is Will Arnett, host of Smartless.

SmartList is a podcast with myself and Sean Hayes and Jason Bateman where each week one of us reveals a mystery guest of the other two. We dive deep with guests that you love, like Bill Hader. Selena Gomez, Jennifer Aniston, David Beckham, Kristen Stewart, and tons more. So join us for a genuinely improvised and authentic conversation filled with laughter and newfound knowledge to feed the smartless mind.

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